My name is Laurie Efrein Kahalas. I was a long-time
member of Peoples Temple, from 1970 through the tragedy in 1978. By then,
I was living in San Francisco, part of a tiny crew left back to process
people going overseas, and to counter media attacks in the States.

In my new book, "SNAKE DANCE: Unravelling the
Mysteries of Jonestown," I explode every media myth surrounding the
Jonestown Tragedy. I replace smears, lies, and cover-ups with the actual
chronology, characters, and scenarios which led to the tragic end. I
address every problem we faced internally -- for individuals, for the
church as a whole, in relation to Jim Jones, in relation to the
surrounding culture. I’ve been searingly honest. But I also loved Peoples
Temple, its vision, its breakthrough accomplishments which served so many,
including the hundreds who died at Jonestown. I am happy to speak for my
precious friends.

I know what efforts some have vested in studying this.
They may resist the notion that those efforts have been wanting. Most have
undoubtedly done the best they could in a monolith intolerant of dissent.
They assumed that the official story was simply "so," as the truth slipped
completely out of view.

Given the one-sided avalanche of bad press which
blanketed the people of Jonestown, I cannot blame the academic community,
so long as researchers’ efforts have been honest, responsible, without
malice or ulterior motive. And I do not doubt that it may seem shocking to
suddenly view Jonestown as if in reverse. To learn that what
led to the tragic end was not the "exposé" of bad people, but rather the
persecution of good people by bad people -- people who were
dis-honest, ir-reponsible,
malicious, and rife with ulterior motives.

You may find this statement incredible, but please be
patient, as must I be with you. It took highly-trained, powerful,
well-connected operatives to bring Peoples Temple down. They succeeded
beyond their wildest dreams, pervasively, worldwide. I do not expect the
terrain to suddenly shift. I do, however, expect that there are people of
integrity, who are committed to religious, press, and other liberties, who
will have the courage to take on such a shift on when the truth be known.
There are root issues which subsume even what happened at Jonestown per
se. This is a subject for people of conscience, who care deeply about what
happens to our culture as a whole.

There are SEVEN GLARING PROBLEMS pervading all research
to date, each addressed separately:

No mention of any real threat against Jonestown

No story from the inside

Malicious press smears prior to the tragedy

No mention of underlying, political motives for the attacks

Total blackout of humanitarian service work

No moral or human context for the suicides

Sources uniformly polluted

1) THERE IS NO MENTION ANYWHERE OF ANY REAL
THREAT; MOREOVER, WHY.

Peoples Temple and Jonestown have been sanitized into a
self-enclosed unit -- disconnected from, rather than in dynamic
interaction with the world of its time. The reality was that the church
had very powerful enemies, who calculatingly drove those people to their
deaths. Yet nowhere is there any mention of a smear campaign, government
agents, or political persecution, much less a military threat.

There is abundant
evidence that threats were ongoing -- mercenary threats, an actual
mercenary attack, threats of mass extinction, and the like. I was
personally either WITNESS to all this, or spoke directly to witnesses,
with much documentary back-up. Any story of Jonestown which does not give
the matter of REAL THREATS center stage is lacking the most basic
rudiments of why people who were inherently peaceful were driven to an
extreme such as mass suicide. Without a real threat, the entire
event becomes incomprehensible.

2) NO ONE HAS EVER TOLD PEOPLES TEMPLE’S STORY
FROM THE INSIDE. AS A DEFENDER.

Due to the extreme, unusual circumstance of smearing an
organization in absentia thousands of miles away, with no
defense permitted, printed, or even considered, the entire terrain evolved
from the standpoint of prosecutor.

If any defendant had been treated this way in a
courtroom, we would demand their first amendment right of free speech,
fourth amendment protection against search and seizure (in this case,
literal invasion), the right to face their accusers, not to even mention
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" without sending in the
troops. Yet what the scholarly community has been viewing as "real," is
what prosecutors (i.e. persecutors) did to a defendant who was
denied counsel, a voice, a motive, even the recognition of real human
reactions upon being forcibly trapped with no way out. Not by mindsets,
not by belief systems. By circumstances.

Moreover, there were real matters that rightfully would
have wound up in a courtroom -- namely, the assassinations at the Port
Kaituma airstrip. I know based upon evidence, that no one from Peoples
Temple killed the Congressman. Even the Court-Appointed Receiver for the
Peoples Temple funds, Robert Fabian, said in his report that there was
insufficient evidence to implicate Peoples Temple. (The so-called
"wrongful death" claims were based upon the poisonings.) Moreover, there
was exculpatory evidence that was never aired, mixed in with suspect
findings and outright disinformation. The truth is that had there ever
been an impartial legal inquiry, there would not have been enough evidence
to even bring an indictment.

Yet Peoples Temple was instantly convicted in the press.
And nearly every researcher out there has blindly accepted this kangaroo
court as reality. Nor does universal acceptance of Peoples Temple
culpability in the assassination qualify as "proof." To the contrary.
Legally, morally, constitutionally, logically, every which way.

So I call upon
scholars to question. This is not a popularity contest, or an exercise in
consensus. The prize is supposed to be the truth.

PEOPLE TEMPLE WAS DESTROYED IN THE PRESS PRIOR TO

ITS PHYSICAL DESTRUCTION, BY WHAT MIGHT CHARITABLY

BE CALLED"VERY BAD PEOPLE."

The smear campaign against Peoples Temple was
orchestrated by five major characters with all the earmarks of being
government agents. Two of them never even set foot in the church,
yet were committed to spearheading its destruction.

Elmer and Deanna Mertle, ex-members who
renamed themselves "Jeannie and Al Mills," were almost transparently
F.B.I. agents. They came from far-right wing backgrounds, joined Peoples
Temple claiming a "conversion," and left when their "kind offer to take
over management of the entire church" was rebuffed. They were never
mistreated, indeed handled with kid gloves; nor did they have any
relatives left in the church when they left.

But the real smoking gun was their close friendship with
a man named David Conn all the years they were with us -- a
man who later admitted "investigating" Peoples Temple the whole time the
Mertles were members! Conn was identified on television as having visited
with the Mertles during their Temple years. Several traced this man to the
Treasury Department, as is detailed in my book. He was also implicated in
trying to bribe and blackmail American Indian Movement leader, Dennis
Banks, to pressure him into turning against Jim Jones. Conn also
instigated Customs and other investigations, based upon bogus claims.
By the second smear, he and the Mertles were already quoting the
I.R.S. tax code, chapter and verse, for how to remove a church’s tax
exemption.

The Mertles were murdered in their own home in February,
1980, professional execution-style murders using dum-dum bullets, done by
people the police surmised "they knew." It was a mere five days
after publicly announcing they wanted off the anti-Temple circuit!

The fourth suspect character, Joseph
Mazor, was identified as a member of Interpol. His entire history
is suspect, as aired in my book. In an article in The Berkeley Barb
(September, 1977), Mazor even admitted that his original employers were
"not present or past members of Peoples Temple"! Moreover, he
admitted hiring a pricy P.R. firm to smear the church. He refused to
reveal the source of his funding.

It was also Mazor who personally came to Jonestown just
weeks prior to the tragedy, claimed credit for the six-day mercenary
siege, and said that the original plan had been "to kidnap the
children and then kill all the adults," i.e. mass
extermination. The people of Jonestown were understandably
terrified.

The fifth suspect character was the most damning of all:
Timothy Stoen. He was secretly a far-right-wing zealot,
unbeknownst to the church until we discovered evidence of a spying mission
into East Berlin in the early sixties. He departed after trying
unsuccessfully to lure Peoples Temple onto a terrorist path, clearing out
just before the smear campaign came down, in the classic mode of an
agent provocateur. He had been our top attorney -- advisor,
strategist, confidante and friend of Jim Jones. Bizarrely, it was his wife
who had had a child by Jones, and Stoen used his own false paternity claim
in his vendetta, founding the "Concerned Relatives" sham with its own
agenda of smears, and luring the Congressman to Jonestown on false
pretenses.

These kings and queens found their helpful knights in the
press. One of the co-authors of the original smear in Murdoch’s "New West"
magazine, Phil Tracy, told Jim Jones point blank, "The media can
make monsters of whomever it chooses" -- and then did not print a
word of the interview! Rebuttals were not only not sought, but rejected.
This was a massive, deliberate, expensive campaign, orchestrated by
people who had never even metus, involving lobbying across
continents, duplicate smears placed in the foreign press, travel, hiring
mercenaries, etc.

The media’s so-called "two source" rule was, in this
instance, a travesty. What if your "two sources" are F.B.I. agents? What
if your "two sources" were, as in the first press smear of Jonestown,
people who had never been to Jonestown at all? What if your "two
on site sources" later on (and there were ONLY TWO, Yolanda
Crawford and Deborah Layton) were working with government agents and
swearing to flagrant lies? What if two people agreed, as did Grace and
Timothy Stoen, to the fiction that Tim Stoen was the father of Jim Jones’
child? What if every journalistic tenet of fair and balanced coverage was
routinely trampled underfoot?

More pointedly for
our purposes here, WHAT IF THAT WAS ALL THAT WAS LEFT FOR
HISTORY?

NO ONE EVER STATED THEIR REAL REASONS FOR ATTACKING PEOPLES
TEMPLE, WHICH WERE POLITICAL.

The breakdown of the attackers was simple. "Grass roots
ex-members" was a media ploy, not a reality. There were three groups of
people involved: Ex-member government plants, their non-member,
government-based "handlers," and a tiny crew of ex-members
with personal spitefests against Jim Jones, who went to work with the
government agents. Those so-called "defectors" were not our best people --
they were our worst. They lacked social consciousness, moral conscience,
or even any awareness that they were themselves being used. Many lost
relatives at Jonestown.

Prior to the press smears, Peoples Temple was acclaimed
in the United States for its 25-year record of exemplary human service. We
got droves of people off welfare onto jobs, youth out of crime and drugs,
cared for the elderly, educated the young, reached out to every person or
group or cause doing good work in every community in which the church was
established. We did THE WORK OF THE CHURCH (i.e. the universal
church prototype), and we did it exceptionally well.

Peoples Temple was never attacked because of its
failures. It was attacked because of itssuccess.Too
much empowerment for poor people and minorities, and from a left-wing
base. We were interracial, left-wing, with a powerful leader making
inroads into the mainstream. Jim Jones was fearless in taking on corporate
America, defending the plight of minorities and the poor, championing
social justice, and was a passionate advocate for racial and economic
equality as a solution to mankind’s ills. Our roster of visitors and
guests read like an encyclopedia of progressive politics. We welcomed
Angela Davis, Jane Fonda, Laura Allende (widow of the slain Chilean
leader), American Indian Movement’s leader, Dennis Banks, Daniel Ellsberg,
the Soviet Friendship Society, and so many more. Jim Jones even visited
with Huey Newton in Cuba. But we also welcomed the Mayor, the Lieutenant
Governor, members of the State Assembly, City Councilmen, members of the
Board of Supervisors and the like.

This was a left-wing church that was gaining
respectability in the mainstream for its good works. But it was also
bouncing off the sixties, with J. Edgar Hoover’s F.B.I. and the C.I.A.’s
Cold War. The "ex-members" ploy gave the attackers the exact cover they
needed, to mask political persecution. They did not have to
state their real motives at all. The very first smear in Murdoch’s "New
West" took the entire sheath of acclamations from "leftist liberals," as
it put it, and tossed it into the trash in favor of, "What is really going
on behind closed doors?" The exemplary 25-year record of humanitarian
service was never mentioned again. "The story" now became that of
"aggrieved ex-members who courageously stepped forward."

Only one conspirator
would ever tip his hand regarding politics. Joseph Mazor, in a interview
just days after the tragedy, announced on t.v. that, "It was
considered that Jim Jones would become a major political force in the
Caribbean within five years." Undoubtedly, the planned
re-relocation to the then-Soviet Union during the Cold War, negated
by the press, but all too real for the people of Jonestown, only made
matters worse.

THE TOTAL BLACKOUT OF THE HUMANITARIAN SERVICE OF PEOPLES TEMPLE,
ESPECIALLY OF ITS CROWN JEWEL ACCOMPLISHMENT, JONESTOWN.

Contrary to reports, Jonestown had many
visitors, including virtually every member of the Guyanese Cabinet, plus
educators, agricultural experts, doctors, visiting relatives, and many
others. Their reports, which are all rave reviews, survive to this day.

Jonestown was a role model for how inner city dwellers
could thrive and excel on a worldwide stage. There was full employment
in trades and professions of choice; varied, plentiful, delicious food; an
advanced educational program for the children; a medical complex which
served not only the needs of the community, but the surrounding Amerindian
population as well; advanced agriculture; creativity and joy in building
homes, electrical generators, landscaping gardens, making clothing,
running a saw mill, a cassava mill; animal husbandry; sharing in a rich
cultural life. Moreover, there was complete integration not only racially,
but by age, senior citizens being treasured, and participating at whatever
level they desired, from sharing their wisdom with the young, to complete
retirement. Many seniors who had been illiterate in the States were
finally taught to read.

Visitors alternately referred to Jonestown as "a
paradise," "a superior society," "a credit to humanity," "like coming to
another planet." and "a lovely utopia." Only Timothy Stoen’s "Concerned
Relatives" sham described Jonestown as "a concentration camp," based upon
the lies of ONE PERSON, with no reporter having visited to confirm
the scandalous claims.

The criteria was not reality, but who was dignified by
the press. News of what was happening at Jonestown for the
betterment of humanity, was not merely deemed irrelevant, but obliterated.
Stoen, the Mertles, and their followers could have any slander or smear
printed without the slightest attempt to verify the charges first-hand.

The people of Jonestown, the great majority of them,
loved their new lives. They only wanted to be left alone to build
in peace. They welcomed visits from anyone, so long as their intent was
not to destroy. The truth is that every single member of congress had
been written, and invited to come Jonestown. The only one who arrived,
however, was Congressman Leo Ryan, at the behest of Stoen. We had appealed
to both the United Nations to come, and Amnesty International, but neither
was able. Increasingly desperate appeals to the entire establishment in
Washington were ignored.

No one would have tolerated the wholesale destruction of
"a paradise," so it was necessary to portray Jonestown as a terrible
place, a hellhole, a "concentration camp." Dehumanizing Jonestown would
ensure that the world would "write off" those beautiful people, their
magnificent example, the hope they could offer others. They could also be
automatically painted as "guilty" for heinous crimes, and "deluded" for
following a "crazed" leader to their deaths.

Indeed, the
overkill was so effective that no one even questioned whether the entire
litany of attacks against Jonestown was substantially false.

6) NO ONE HAS
GIVEN ANY MORALLY COMPREHENSIBLE POSITION FOR THE PEOPLE OF JONESTOWN TO
TAKE THEIR OWN LIVES.

There has been no reason offered, no logic,
no morality, no sanity, no human feeling, not so much as a choice.
Only "cultists," "brainwashing," "crazed leader," "paranoia," "robots,"
even "psychopaths."

I do not defend mass suicide. However dire the
circumstances, what if at least a few children could be saved. One
always thinks that, and I am fine with leaving it controversial
forever. It is also true that leadership at Jonestown was zealous, and
that the people were caught in a vice between pressures from the inside
and the outside. Yet these people chose their new life, and
the very great majority loved their new lives. They
would not have been forced back to oppressive conditions in the United
States.

The reality at the time was of A GENUINE, EXCRUCIATING
MORAL DILEMMA, which has never been articulated:

This was a remote community in the middle of a jungle.
Following a six-day mercenary siege in September, 1977, escape routes to
Venezuela were investigated and deemed too dangerous. Moreover, in
contrast to reports falsely portraying Jonestown as "an armed camp," the
community was pathetically underarmed, and cut off from the outside world.
Not so much as a telephone. The community had been told by an arch-enemy,
namely Joseph Mazor, just weeks before the Congressman arrived at
Jonestown, that the original mercenary plan had been to kidnap the
children and then kill all the adults, i.e. mass extermination.
That was when people were just going about their daily business. How much
more the peril in the wake of the assassination of a Congressman!

Some may still say they should have waited to see how
terrifying and brutal was the carnage, and then at least a few lives might
have been spared. Such people, assuming that they comprehend the
realities, should have a voice. But I question, under such circumstances,
who shall claim the authority to act as a judge. I am not God, and I
assume neither is anyone else.

In ancient Masada, a whole community committed suicide,
who did not even expect to be slaughtered. They expected to be dragged
away into slavery -- to have their homes, their families, their way of
life decimated by invaders. Maybe they "did the wrong thing." But the
historical view is that their motives were sufficient to have provoked
their actions. Certainly no one has referred to them as "babykillers."

There were people dragged away from Africa in slave ships
headed to the United States who deliberately jumped ship and drowned.
Tragic, yes. But no one has questioned their "morality" for doing so.

I do not say this to endorse what happened at
Jonestown. I do urge, however, that these models, at the least, are
used as the basis for historical evaluation, not that of fanatics with no
motive, no real threat, a crazed leader on drugs, mindlessly brainwashed,
and the like. The people of Jonestown feared an impending slaughter, and
given the ongoing campaign of deadly threats, that fear was legitimate,
human, real.

Indeed, out of a new cache of government documents newly
released by one Brian Czuk, emerged a "buried treasure" I call "FINAL
WITNESS." It is a key to unlocking the humanity of the people
of Jonestown, something few have even tried to date. The media myth is
that the people of Jonestown were either 1) brainwashed robots who
mindlessly follows the orders of a psychopathic leader; or 2) kicking and
screaming, coerced, being pursed into the jungle with guns or forcibly
injected with hypodermic needles.

These are people I knew. I knew their vibrant morale, and
their passionate pride in their cherished Jonestown. I have had to
struggle against the media myths without evidence, but now this has
shifted. "FINALWITNESS", a handwritten letter authenticated
by the State Department as found in Jonestown following the tragedy, is a
powerful confirmation that what happened at Jonestown may have been
radically different than what the public had been led to believe.

As I have detailed in a separate piece entitled FINAL
WITNESS, I never have, or ever would, claim that everyone at Jonestown
died in the same frame of consciousness. Surely there was bitterness,
conflict, even terror. The young were zealous, the old more at peace, the
children frightened, etc. I will not paint a monolith to counteract a
monolith.

Yet the very best, the bravest, the highest, and the most
aware comes forth in FINAL WITNESS. It is a signal, indeed, that
perhaps one must re-think EVERYTHING.

"November 19, 1978 - The Last Day of Peoples Temple

To Whomever finds this note

Collect all the tapes, all the writing, all the
history. The story of this movement, this action, must be examined over
and over. It must be understood in all of its incredible dimensions.
Words Fail. We have pledged our lives to this great cause. We are proud
to have something to die for. We do not fear death. We hope that the
world will someday realize the ideals of brotherhood, justice and
equality that Jim Jones has lived and died for. We have all chosen to
die for this cause. We know there is no way that we can avoid
misinterpretation. But this movement was born too soon. The world was
not ready to let us live.

I am sorry there is no eloquence as I write these final
words. We are resolved, but grieved that we cannot make the truth of our
witness clear.

This is the last of our lives. May the world find a way
to a new birth of social justice. If there is any way that our lives can
ever help that take place, we will have not lived in vain.

Jim Jones did not order anyone to attack or kill
anyone. It was done by individuals who had too much of seeing people try
and destroy this movement. Their actions have left us no alternative,
and rather than see this cause decimated, we have chosen to give our
lives. We are proud of that choice.

Please try to understand. Look at all.
Look at all in perspective. Look at Jonestown, see what we have tried to
do. This was a movement to [give][ life to the newest of the
human spirit, broken by Capitalism, by a system of exploitation and
injustice. Look at all that was built by a beleaguered people. We did
not want that kind of ending – we wanted to live, to shine, to bring
light to a world that is dying for a bit of love.

To those left behind of our loved ones, many of whom
will not understand, who never knew this truth, grieve not. We are
grateful for this opportunity to bear witness – a bitter witness.
History has chosen our destiny in spite of our own desire to forge our
own. We were at a cross-purpose with history. But we are calm in this
hour of our own demons of accident, circumstance, miscalculation, error
that was not our intent, beyond our intent.

I hope that someone writes this whole story. It is not
‘news.’ It is more. We merge with millions of others, we are subsumed in
the archetype. People hugging each other, embracing, we are hurrying –
we do not want to be captured. We want to bear witness at once.

We did not want it this way. All was going well as Ryan
completed final day here. Then a man tried to attack him,
unsuccessfully. At same time, several set out into jungle wanting to
overtake Ryan, kids, and others who left with them. They did, and
several killed. When we heard this we had no choice. We would be
taken. We have to go as one, we want to live as Peoples Temple, or
end it. We have chosen. It is finished.

Hugging and kissing and tears and silence and joy in a
long line. Touches and whispered words as this silent line passes.
Determination, purpose. A proud people. Only last night, their voices
raised in unison, a voice of affirmation and today, a different
sort of affirmation, a dimension of that same victory of the human
spirit.

A tiny kitten sits next to me watching. A dog barks.
The birds gather on the wires overhead. Let all the story of this
Peoples Temple be told. Let all the books be opened. This sight – a
terrible victory – how bitter that we did not, could not, that Jim Jones
was crushed by a world that he didn’t make. How great the victory.

If nobody understands, it matters not – I am ready to
die now. Darkness settles over Jonestown on its last day on
Earth."

7) THE SOURCES ARE UNIFORMLY POLLUTED.

Discriminations must be made so we do not inadvertently
cite the work of virtual Nazis as "scholarship." Am I serious? Very much
so. If you were to research the Holocaust, surely you would not cite "Mein
Kampf" along with "The Diary of Anne Frank" without comment. Or say that
well, one was the scribbles of a teenage girl, but this Mr. Hitler! Well,
he has a whole, impressive-looking book!

And what if the Jews had been wiped out and Hitler won?
How could that poor little girl with her scribbly little diary possibly
counteract what the whole world had accepted as "true"?

Yet that is EXACTLY what the Jonestown research looks
like. The lack of meaningful comprehension of the deaths at Jonestown
pervades the scholarly field every bit as much as it dominated the press.
The sources are... POLLUTED. The original sources (from whichevery scholarly work out there has drawn) portrayed themselves as
blameless plaintiffs, when the reality was not only brutally one-sided,
but that of PERSECUTION, and an alarming IMBALANCE OF POWER.

To draw a familiar analogy, Mr. Potter’s vendetta against
George Bailey in "It’s a Wonderful Life." Potter stole the money from
Uncle Billy, to not only put the Baileys out of business, but land them in
jail. He stole it, but all the power of the law was on his side. If not
for the dramatic bail-out at the end (George had the advantage of
remaining on site with his good works -- Peoples Temple had been smeared
in absentia thousands of miles away), Uncle Billy would have
landed in the looney bin, and all George’s hard work and sacrifice would
have been demolished. Fortunately, George Bailey did not go through with
his suicide. But if he had suffered this while separated from his home, in
a remote jungle for example, all bets might have been off.

Frank Capra made that wonderful movie so that we could
see how such things happen. The people of Jonestown had no such benefit.
We all live in "Pottersville" now, perusing the Pottersville libraries for
source materials. All those "knowledgeable scholars and respected authors"
who have allegedly contributed so much to our understanding of infamy.
Like Marshall Kilduff (original press smearer). David Conn (the government
agent who orchestrated the smear campaign). Jeannie Mills (the ex-member
government plant who coordinated with Conn). Deborah Layton (who used her
own personal spitefest against Jim Jones to smear and slander all
of us). The list goes on and on.

I want to SET A NEW STANDARD for Jonestown research. I am
asking for the support of the people most intimately concerned, namely the
scholars themselves, and activists who have been trying to defuse the
"cult mania" in the cult-u-(a)re. It has become all
too easy to become brainwashed into buying brainwashing stories. And if
smaller, controversial groups, or those who challenge the status quo, are
persecuted, especially if for those reasons, then everyone’s
liberties become endangered.

It may seem to some that the weight of the evidence must
fall on the side of preponderance. But although that serves the status
quo, it does not serve the truth. You look at nearly
everything in the way of research, and there is still only
one side.

Some may be uncomfortable with what I have to say. But
even the poorest defendant with the most miserable legal representation is
allowed a day in court. This is not "just one more opinion." I am the
only person who has or will walk in the shoes of the dead, and give their
unheeded pleas in the throes of real, life-threatening disaster a
voice.

I know that Jonestown has generated great interest world
wide -- many may even consider themselves "experts." It may be hard for
some to face that long-held tenets or assumptions might have to be
radically revised. No one wants to feel that their efforts have been
wasted.

I believe the higher truth is that nothing done with good
motives is "wasted." But the truth is a pearl of great price. It is a
false assumption that the majority opinion, even of "scholars," has to be
right. Great souls were pilloried in times past for claiming that the
world was round. Einstein had the whole world accept certain of his
theories, then doubted them himself. He did not care about acceptance --
only that it was the truth.

More mundanely, we accept what comes over the newswaves
as truth, even when we, as a whole culture, ought to know better. They
herded together all those poor relatives who lost their teenage daughters
and sons in the crash of TWA flight 800, only to have the F.B.I.
show them a fictionalized simulation prepared by the C.I.A., to
demonstrate that 244 eyewitnesses (allegedly) didn’t see what they
saw. (Namely a missile launched up towards the plane prior to the
explosion). It was on the front page of the New York Times.

Was there a public outcry? I must have missed it. And
what about the relatives? Do they not deserve the truth? Do they not
deserve the truth forever? Will anything less than the truth ever
compensate for their loss? Yet there are NO "experts"
weighing in for the obvious: that 244 eyewitnesses probably did not
all "not see what they saw." Much less questioning why the F.B.I.
and the C.I.A. did not claim that even ONE person witnessed the
scenario they claimed really happened!

They even killed off someone as prestigious as Pierre
Salinger, who tried. They said he must have read some gossip on the
internet and mistaken it for reality. Pierre Salinger, John F. Kennedy’s
press secretary, respected journalist, author, commentator. Useless.
Valueless. Killed off. Military wins, populace loses.

In all of the books written since the tragedy at
Jonestown, I see little trace of real advocacy for Jonestown’s tragic
plight. It breaks my heart, because I know it would break theirs. My
friends were persecuted to their deaths.

I appeal to anyone who cares about religious liberty,
about freedom of speech, about freedom from political persecution -- even
the raw and basic right to live free of military threats! These people had
no defense. They were railroaded into their graves, then dehumanized into
"brainwashed fanatics," "robots," "psychopaths" or whatever else the
traffic might bear. All while the truth was that the community of
Jonestown was a magnificent place that had been acclaimed by all visitors,
shy of the final media travesty -- rave reviews which still survive.(See RAVE REVIEWS in another section on this site.)

In this context, my book standing alone (albeit
well-documented) really does not matter. I have the tools for defense, AND
NO CASE SHOULD BE DENIED A DEFENSE. Government and media will always
protect their "prosecution," even if it was never routed through a court
of law. Even a court of law may not arrive at truth – how much less so the
hearsay, plotting, scheming, fabrication, false affidavits and the like
which surrounded Jonestown.

We’ve been twenty years in the caves with this one. At
the rate it has been going, we could spend two hundred more picking
through the artifacts. Something that has been so wrongly based on wrong
information from the wrong source people, cannot lead to any conclusion
which is right. Moreover, if this was done to Jonestown, it can be done
to others.

This is no job for residents of "ivory towers." Scholars
may not be investigative journalists, but all are citizens. Moreover, with
responsibilities beyond those of ordinary citizens. What survives in
libraries is our nation’s past, and its future legacy. The lack of
challenge of a bullying media, hearsay, rumor, people with tainted
motives, and the naiveté about who wields power in this culture and why,
are errors for which we may all be called upon to pay. The whole purpose
of scholarship is analysis and criticism, not blind acceptance. This role
has, to date, been virtually abdicated with respect to Jonestown.

I trust you will take this to heart. I will be happy to
answer any questions you may have. Life gave me this responsibility, this
entrustment, and I plan to execute it well. I loved my precious friends. I
shall give the world their truth.